I .. -."..- r- A:: '-- : ,, 'J' . i:J -'-: j .' .- . . , . ." ... . . "- (1 -;" !I'f: .\. hi W , !1 .. ", .</ " """ ....."... \- .. .;; f'HI(,"N6Ðt-b the little things about this "Sti:ffelio"- I saw the third of four performances- were essentially right. Zack Brown's sets-Salzburg castle, cemetery, church-were handsome, apt in style ( the painted backcloth of cypresses against a cloudy night sky matched the romantic musical scene-painting that opens Act II) , varied in depth, and cunningly planned to create spacious- ness and grandeur on a difficult stage. ] ohn Lehmeyer's costumes subtly de- :fined the characters and looked good. The orchestra played with a keen, quick sense of Verdi's expres- SIve colors ("Stiffelio" is the most eloquently scored of the pre-"Rigoletto" operas), and the Orpheum's lack of a sunken orchestral pit seemed a positive advantage: the in- strumental details told, yet the singers were not drowned. The title role is one of :five-from Zamoro in "Al- zira," in 1845, to Riccardo in "D n Ballo in Maschera," in 1859- that Verdi composed for Gaetano F raschini, his idea] of a tenor; as late as 1871 he wanted him to create Ra- damès Fraschini had a ringing, power- ful delivery; he was nicknamed the tenore della maledizione, after the vig- or with which as Edgar he used to curse poor Lucy in the second-act :finale of Donizetti's opera. Verdi used that maledictory force to great effect in the :first-act and (with exposed octave leaps marked "con voce terribile") second- act :finales of "Stiffelio." But the role is far from being all rant. In this most adventurous opera, Verdi also com- posed passages that represent his closest approach to Bellini-not paradoxically, since Bellini was both the creator of a heroic yet graceful vocal line, charged with fierce emotions yet strictly con- trolled, and a pioneer in the practice of irregular forms determined by dramatic content. In the accents of Pollio (in "N orma"), over the simplest of Bel- linian accompaniments, Stiffelius ad- dresses Lina in ... ct III. For the title role, Miss Caldwell had found a tenor, Roelof Oostwoud, with a distinct, well- formed delivery of both words and mu- sical phrases His tones were clean and purely projected, and he was a good actor. He gave an ardent, satisfying ac- count of the most arresting tenor char- acter Verdi composed before Othello. Anna Moffo, Lina at the first two performances, had retired ill; I heard Leigh Munro, who had learned the role in haste yet sang it with complete assurance. Her voice is not large and voluptuous but clear, bnght, and true. Lina, like Luisa Miller (the parts were written for the same soprano), needs to be, in Verdi's phrase, "in genua ed estremamente drammatica." Miss Munro IS young, attractive, an excel- len t actress, and a dramatic interpreter of the music. We will surely be hearing more of her. Count Stankar, Lina's father, was composed for a polished, conventional baritone of the old school, Filippo Colini; for Verdi he had al- ready created] oan of Arc's father. In Donizettian music, Verdi employed Colini's merits and limitations to draw the picture of an old-style aristocrat, but he added an unconventional touch by di- recting a cabaletta of fero- cious, vengeful excitement ("Oh gioia inesprimibile") to be sung "extremely softly throughout, with the excep- tion of the :final phrase," a tutta forza outburst. Brent Ellis, the Boston Stankar, spoiled the effect by singing the whole movement at a healthy forte. The other characters are subaltern, and were well enough taken. "Stiffelio" was done in Italian, not English, and it was presumably to pro- vide a visual gloss to words uncompre- hended that Miss Caldwell had Stankar publicly stab Lina's seducer in the back: a thing he would never have done-at any rate, not in front of oth- er people. The plain sense of the words (as well as Verdi's stage direction) was contradicted at the :final curtain: "Forgiven, the woman [taken in adul- tery] rose up" -but Lina remained kneeling. Men wearing hats in church looked odd-though I would not put it past Miss Caldwell to have turned up the hat rules of some nIneteenth-centu- ry Salzburg sect that did wear them except while actually praying. The church scene sported an enthusiastic organist who mimed away like Virgil Fox in full flight even when the organ was not plaYIng. A bad Caldwell idea: the deliberately static, expectant quality of the music-alI are waiting to hear on what text Sti:ffelius will preach- needs to be matched by a motionless scene. A directorial gloss at the very start-family prayers instead of the sol- itarv reader-can be defended: it re- moved some of the strangeness from Verdi's openIng, but at a stroke it in- troduced anyone who had not read the libretto to a household anxious, for var- ious reasons, about Stiffelius's return. (It was during his absence on a mission that Lina sinned.) In general, the stag- ing was crisp, intelligent, and very mu- sical. The characterizations of major 109 0 0 00 !J!r IILbeaut!fu1Palm CJ3eaq .. """-. ø ....., " " , - \ 1 ! .", ...... ,\. '. ) ^ ,a.. - ... .......""'" ... .... " , \ .._ f11 " _ \ . ""+ i > 1 ,i;,/ -..1j. .......;+ ",\., ' l ,::.::. I , Js, \., 't<;, , This Renaissance resort beside the blue Atlantic offers life in the grand manner: elegant accommodations, superb cuisine, a private beach, pools, two 18-hole golf courses, 12 tennis courts, tropical gardens and more. 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